


The Endless

by utsu



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, M/M, Magic, Magic School, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Slow Build, Slow Burn, magical university (wriggles brows)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-11 07:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3319712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utsu/pseuds/utsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Give and take, a precipice leapt together, sealed with a kiss; sometimes magic works without incantations or spells or potions or charms, sometimes it works gradually, constant as time, through the inner workings of one’s soul, with red-threaded fingers twining strands of intangible beings together, whispering symphonies into their frameworks.</p><p>Haru and Rin rest their foreheads together.</p><p>A new shining glow surrounds them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Endless

Streams of light pierce through the effervescent lake, undaunted and unyielding, flickering like distant galaxies across the wide expanse of open water. The waves overhead are steady and constant, rippled with texture as unique as human consciousness and equally as spellbinding. Fish like springtime flowers, bright and vibrant, sail past and dive deep; their scales catch the sunlight and reflect it back to the surface where it belongs. Birds with sharp nacre beaks, ochre eyes, and streamline feathers as lithe and smooth as scales dive deep below the surface with webbed feet; swimming even further than the light breaking through the surface, out of sight, out of reach.

Nanase Haruka laughs, watches the resulting air bubbles flutter to the surface, golden and glowing like orbs of creation straight from his chest. _How incredible_ , he thinks, that even he can create.

Taking one last glance over the expanse of the lake, Haru smiles, a private thing, shared only with the cold touch of the water against his lips, his face, every dip and curve of him, more intimate than any lover, and turns back to the surface. He emerges several yards from the shore, flips his black hair out of his face with a casual grace not unlike his usual nature. He treads water for a moment, bobbing with the incoming and outgoing waves, feeling the flurried slide of fish against his ankles as he stares up at the densely layered onyx towers of his university, reaching up endlessly high in the sky, like ink-stained blades piercing through the earth.

He still feels relaxed, comfortable—he’s in water, after all—but looking to his university brings about chills of excitement, of anticipation. Though the break had only been a few weeks, it had dragged on long and dreary, boring like last year’s mandatory Arid Appreciation course.

This year, his third year, is going to be something special. Haru had received his new schedule weeks ago, pleased to place into his desired and required courses, of which included Alchemy, Aether Instruction, a writing intensive Literomancy course, Intro to Meditation, Spiritual Awareness, and most especially, an Intro to Water Transduction course that teaches students how to transmute matter with water as a medium.

Just thinking about the extra time that he’ll be allotted to spend around water and even _underwater_ (now that he has educational _permission_ and won’t be docked points for spending studying time in the lake!) has him feeling lighter and far more enthusiastic about the school year than he had previously. It’s not that he hadn’t had fun, because he had, but the classes offered to first and second years are nowhere near as appealing, challenging, or unique to one’s interests as that of the classes offered to third years and the rest of the upperclassmen. He’s looking forward to the freedom, and to the challenges.

He says, “ _Eximo_ ,” and feels the tingling sensation of the gills in his neck sealing and scarring over with new skin, the knobbed trail that ignites along his trachea and leaves his tongue tingling until his breathing returns to normal. _Aqua Aer_ had been one of the first spells that he’d taught himself when he was old enough to understand his magic and his abilities. For someone like him, who so enjoys spending time underwater and has met so many amazing friends whom can only breathe and speak underwater, it had been essential to teach himself how to breathe underwater, too.

He’d been ten years old the first time the spell was successful.

He kicks his feet, still treading water even though he’s certain that the time of the first class of the new semester is fast approaching. He’s still high on the realization that he now has an actual class that necessitates near-daily trips deep into the lake; his limbs feel light and his mood carefree.

He glances up to the shore once more and his heart throbs, the light feeling from before multiplying and amplifying until he feels as though his chest has been hitched open, his heart a shivering bare thing suspended in the raptors of his ribcage, starving for a single heated, freckled touch.

Matsuoka Rin waves to him from the shore, his jeans cuffed above his calves with his feet in the water, his smile as big and sweet as a watermelon slice. Haru finds himself swimming a little quicker, a little more insistently towards the shore, and doesn’t even question his priorities—that getting to Rin’s side is more appealing than remaining in the lake, submerged in the comforting chill of the water.

“Haru, come on!” Rin shouts, one hand cupped by his lips as if to help throw his voice further, to reach Haru sooner. He needn’t have worried; regardless of the circumstances, Haru will always meet him halfway.

His feet find purchase on the sandy ground and he pushes himself further, slicing through the water like a knife, every line of him dripping as he comes to stand in front of Rin. The cursory glance he offers the redhead is nothing new and as such, neither of them thinks anything of it. Haru’s eyes trace every line of Rin, a greeting of sorts, one eyebrow raised when he sees that Rin’s wearing the red Converse Haru had gotten him the previous Christmas. He’s wearing plain black jeans, a graphic t-shirt, and a long black jacket unzipped around him, his hair vibrant against the dark shades.

On any given day, Haru can be found fairly spellbound by how good looking Rin is. He isn’t embarrassed to think it, or to admit it, or even to tell Rin outright. There’s just something about the way he’s so angular, cut like the finest diamond—equal parts transparent and precious—with eyes ocean deep and sunshine bright that make Haru feel _excited_. His pulse thrums under his skin and he wonders how someone so beautiful has always been by his side; his eyes leap up from the bare expanse of Rin’s neck and meet his glittering eyes.

When they look at each other properly and Rin greets him with a disgruntled reminder that they have _class_ , Haru realizes that there’s something different about Rin; something he can’t quite put his finger on, can’t quite put into words, his eyes continuing to search Rin questioningly.

Rin is beautiful, yes, and he has always _been_ beautiful, but he has never actually _glowed_ before, right? There is a definite layer of golden hue surrounding him, as though the sun was rising just behind him, the sunrise his own personal accessory. Haru quirks a brow, silent and contemplative as they stand together with their feet still in the sand, the water lapping at his ankles and Rin looking closer and closer to just pulling Haru’s arm and walking him straight to class, even if he _is_ only in his jammers.

For a flicker of a moment as a three-tailed fire pigeon flies overhead with a melodic trill, leaving behind the scent of charred ash, Haru legitimately thinks about asking Rin if he has a history of glowing.

He very nearly does ask, but only just manages to silence himself when a roar saturates the air, loud enough to shake the earth beneath their feet, unsettling their footing. Both of them glance up into the sky, unconcerned, as the muzzle of a giant scarlet beast comes into view from behind the closest onyx tower, the Great Hall. The dragon is a living flame, it’s metallic scales as dense as mountains, impenetrable and flickering in the sunlight. It’s muzzle is long and thin and it’s massive teeth are pearls backlit by blue flame coursing through the dragon’s body and up and out of its mouth as it hollers once again, chasing the fire pigeon with narrow eyes and it’s tongue lolling out. There is an orange bandana wrapped around a section of its long throat and a tiny speck sitting astraddle.

“Everything’s fine we’re just looking for stag beetles!” a shaky voice calls down as the dragon, a massive beast, gives a mighty toss of it’s broad wings and flashes by, quick as a lightning strike with a thundering roar trailing behind it. Everything around them settles and straightens in its wake and Haru gives a quiet laugh at Rin’s peeved face and his halfhearted attempts to fix his hair. He reaches up and pats some of the wayward hairs down, tucks the rest behind one of Rin’s curiously small ears.

Rin goes still at the gesture, clears his throat and can’t look Haru in the eyes. His cheeks are pink and he’s shuffling his feet a little and Haru wonders how he’d react if he just lifted up onto his toes and kissed him right now. He doesn’t follow through, mostly because he’s still distracted by that strange radiance surrounding Rin and wondering what kind of spell he’d cast, or potion he’d imbibed, that had had this kind of side effect.

He refused to ask—he did have _some_ sense of embarrassment after all—so instead, he resolves himself to figure it out without ever having to embarrass himself by asking at all. He’s got plenty of classes that will broaden his horizons and teach him new and incredible things about the world, both magical and ordinary, and in-between then he’ll have access to their grand library and all of the knowledge stored there.

It will be simple.

All he has to do is find the right clue, something small and telling, and search along its path to find what it is that Rin has done to himself that is now making him appear so bright and inscrutable.

In the meantime, however, he has to go get changed out of his jammers and into his clothing in time to make it to their first class: Alchemy. Rin seems more excited about it than he does and has finally succumbed to his impatience, reaching out and linking his arm through Haru’s in order to start them off towards the school locker room. Haru glances up and over at Rin, studies his wide toothy grin and the lightness of his feet as they walk together, the way he doesn’t seem to care that Haru’s getting his clothing all wet and his fingers are resting against the delicate line of Haru’s wrist.

Haru looks back to the imposing towers ahead of them, the masses of students all scattered over the grounds heading here and there in as carefree a nature as imaginable on a first day. Only the younger students, obviously first years, seem concerned and erratic, though most of them are already inside the building so as to be on time. The red-tipped trees surrounding them flicker in the light breeze, their sturdy russet trunks bathed in sunlight.

Rin begins to chatter about his classes, the ones they share and the ones he’s most excited for, and Haru listens to him and moves an inch closer, sharing his heat, letting his hummingbird heartbeat settle down in his chest with the close proximity of Rin’s beside him.

He looks up at the endless sky, a dry ocean, and smiles.

 

✧

 

A few weeks after classes start back up, Rin starts carrying a stick around and calls it a wand. Haru is, of course, highly skeptical, but he also finds it incredibly endearing and adorable so he doesn’t object. Not that Rin will change his tune even if Haru _does_ object; whenever Haru makes a comment about it he just brushes it off, shrugs his shoulders and smirks with flushed cheeks. Haru finds himself making more comments about the wand because of that reaction alone.

One afternoon just after Haru’s last class has finished, he heads out towards the parking lot, gently patting the thickly corded neck of a six-legged rhorse and making sure he steers clear of the prominent horn protruding from the crest of it’s nose, just to be safe. His right hand is tucked away in his pocket, fingertips playing with the key ring he has stowed away in there, a clanking prisoner. He glances both ways and steps off the curb, heading over to the bench on the outskirts of the Shrine Forest where Rin sits hunched over, poking at something on the street with his wand.

When he hears Haru’s gentle footfalls, he glances up with a smile, eyes crinkling at the sides.

“‘Bout time,” he says, jovial. Haru nods, expression tender as he comes to a stop and glances down at the end of Rin’s wand where a butterfly the same shade as Rin’s hair is perched. Even with Haru’s shadow falling over it, it seems content to stay there, unbothered.

“Sorry, he held us a little late today.” Haru explains, watching the delicate wings flicker in the breeze and then still, the luminescent green body standing out garishly from the russet brown of the wand. “Looks like you made a friend, though.”

“Oh this little gal?” Rin chirps, obviously excited about the butterfly’s presence. Haru takes a second to wonder just how late he is and how much time Rin’s had out here by himself before he refocuses on Rin’s voice, ignoring the distant roaring coming from over the mountains. With a glance at his watch, he knows that it is time for the Mikoshiba’s to be picked up and taken home, so the roaring isn’t anything to be concerned over.

“She fluttered over just a bit ago. Even when I move the wand a bit she doesn’t seem to care.” Rin glances up through his long bangs, grin somewhere between smug and proud. “I named her Wanda.”

Haru snorts. “That’s fitting, I guess.”

Rin gives him a look; says, “Don’t sass my wand. I’m almost certain that by week eight I’ll be able to conjure something with it!”

“Mm,” Haru hums, looking skeptical. “Why don’t you try to conjure something with your fingertips?”

Rin’s answer is immediate and complacent; “The wand is so much cooler!”

“You can probably conjure things easier and more efficiently with your fingertips though, right?”

Rin takes a moment to think it over, chewing on the thought. “Maybe. Probably.”

“Probably,” Haru repeats, studying Rin’s expression as he worries at his lip. “So you haven’t ever conjured anything with your hands before?”

Rin looks up at him, then, curious and at the same time this side of suspicious. He frowns a little, raising a delicate brow. “No? Have you?”

“No.” Haru responds, tone neutral. He shows no sign of disappointment in his expression, but internally he has to admit that he’s a little flustered.

For weeks he had been trying to find the answer to the glow surrounding Rin, trying to figure out what kind of magic the redhead had used on himself that may have backfired and left a radiant trail behind. He’d even gone so far as to pursue the notion that maybe the radiance was the _intended_ effect, and not just a side effect. That opened up the realm of possibilities a lot more and ultimately made more work for Haru, but that hadn’t done much to discourage him since he’d pretty much found nothing in the first place. Several weeks later and Haru is still sitting with what he’d had to begin with: absolutely nothing.

“Well,” Rin sighs, and he slowly stands to his full height, mindful of both his wand and Wanda. He glances up to Haru and tucks some of his hair behind his ear, the crests of his cheeks a light pink that Haru instantly wants to kiss. The desire is immediate, unbidden, but he allows it to grow roots in his mind without suspicion. He swallows instead. “I was thinking that, ya know, if you don’t have much homework we could go down to the lake and hang out with Fineen and Cassian.”

At the mention of Haru’s two favorite merfolk, he brightens like a sunrise, nodding his head and forgetting all about his seemingly fruitless quest to uncover the origin of Rin’s luster. Caught up in his excitement to get to visit with them again after so many weeks apart as well as the realization that he’ll be spending time in the water with Rin, he reaches out, unthinkingly, for Rin’s hand.

Rin glances at Haru’s hand curiously, his blush even more pronounced as he shifts wand and Wanda over to his other hand and reaches out to thread their fingers together. Haru breathes in and tightens his hand around Rin’s, just barely, a minute movement he isn’t even sure Rin feels, and lifts his chin.

It’s not like this is the first time that they’ve ever held hands; they’d grown up together; have always been at each other’s side. But all the times prior to this one any occurrence of handholding had usually been preceded by a physical or emotional injury. Between them, handholding had always been a comforting gesture, a sign of solidarity and compassion.

With this one slip-up, Haru has shown that there is more to it than that—at least for him. But Rin had reached his hand out, too, had met Haru halfway and didn’t seem bothered too much about it as they headed towards the immense lake that surrounded half of their university, a deep blue glade with the last vestiges of sunlight dancing over the surface in flickering geometrics.

Haru fiddles with his key ring with his free hand, slightly unsettled after his blunder, and he can feel the heat high in his cheeks and wonders if this is how Rin feels every time Haru makes _him_ blush. He’s happy, though, so happy he feels like his next step might not connect with the earth, that he might lift off and float up into the sky had Rin not been here to anchor him to the ground. Who knew that the art of levitation started with love?

Haru glances over at Rin and realizes that he doesn’t have jammers with him, his steps sputtering to a stop as his hand wraps around his keys and pulls them from his pocket.

“Your legskins,” he says, while his keys snag and get stuck on the edge of his pocket. “I have my jammers on under my jeans but you don’t have yours.”

Rin snorts, shaking his head. Haru gives his keys another tug, saying, “We can go to your apartment really quick—”

As he’s speaking, his final tug on his keys jerks them loose and out of his grip. They fly out of his hand and clatter to the asphalt, skidding until they fall through the sewer grate just a few feet away from them. Haru stares at the grate and listens to the clang of his keys as they fall through, his mouth hanging open and Rin laughing beside him. They both stare at the grate for a long moment, a little shocked and a lot concerned, the latter mostly coming from Haru. Rin’s smiling at his profile, shaking his head as he walks them over towards the grate.

“I can’t believe,” Rin says, “that just happened.”

“How am I going to get home to change my jammers?” Haru whispers remorsefully, his eyes heavy. Rin snorts, says, “You’re incredible.”

He releases Haru’s hand and a tiny part of Haru has the mind to miss the warmth of his palm, the strength of his fingers threaded through Haru’s. The rest of him, the rational bits, are trying to figure out how he’s going to get his keys back and if that’s not possible, how he’s going to get back into his apartment later that night. He figures he can always stay at Rin’s place, but that brings chills up along the nape of his neck and makes his heart rate pick up speed.

Maybe he can stay with Cassian and Fineen.

He voices this last notion and Rin gives him a longsuffering stare, sighing.

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” he remarks, carefree in a way that Haru realizes can only mean that he has a plan. “I can fix this.”

“Your arms are too muscular to fit through the bars,” Haru immediately explains, flushing a little at the wording and hoping that Rin doesn’t read too much into Haru having noticed the strapping nature of his arms, and yet also hoping a little that he does.

“Obviously.” Rin scoffs, kneeling down by the grate and carefully putting his wand to the ground. He offers a gently outstretched finger to Wanda, who somehow, amazingly, is still along for the ride between them. Haru watches as the butterfly steps onto his finger, flashing her wings twice in an alluring manner before fluttering off when he lifts his hand up into the air, giving her a lift off. They both watch her go for a moment, sharing the intimacy of her company between them with small smiles before glancing back down at the hole in the ground that has swallowed up Haru’s apartment keys.

Rin is now beaming outright, his expression dazzling enough to make Haru squint; he smirks up at Haru and points his wand at him with an arrogant flick of his wrist.

He says, “I always knew this wand would come in handy!”

And then he proceeds to stick his wand through the bars and struggle for a few moments to pierce the key ring but ultimately, to Haru’s exasperated surprise, he manages to get the keys out of the sewer. He dangles them on the tip of his finger, smirking arrogantly before handing them back to Haru.

“Come on,” he sings, lightly jabbing Haru in the side with his elbow. “Admit that my wand has magically helped us!”

“It wasn’t magic,” Haru sniffs, frowning. “But…your wand did help. Thank you.”

Rin grins at him, a knowing gleam in his eyes. He lifts a hand and lightly rubs Haru’s hair, making a slight mess of it in the process. Haru is so surprised by the gesture that he can’t even move, barely even breathes, until Rin pulls back and sticks his wand back into his back pocket. He turns back to Haru and hesitates for only a flicker of a moment, then reaches his hand out.

“To the lake, then?” he asks, eyebrows raised. The sun reaches down and threads through his hair with iridescent fingers, turning it in parts red, fuchsia, and rose, a spellbinding combination that takes Haru’s breath away. He doesn’t even fix his hair even though he knows it’s standing up in disarray; he reaches out and threads his fingers through Rin’s once more, feeling his heart give a tug in his chest. Rin smiles at him and turns them towards the lake, pace slow and leisurely.

“Oh,” he adds, remembering Haru’s earlier words. “I do have my legskins, by the way.”

Haru beams, face and shoulders lifting as he nods his head and turns towards the lake, excitement rekindled like a fire being stoked. He squeezes Rin’s hand a little, a comforting gesture, and he watches out of the corner of his eyes the way that Rin’s lips curl up in response.

“I haven’t talked to Fineen or Cassian in ages,” Rin says a few minutes later, when they’re making their way down the mountainside steps, each one made of durable cobbled stone, speckled and gray. The sun reflects off of the onyx towers of their university, creating light heat waves against their backs and bringing beads of sweat up along their sideburns. Strange fluorescent flora burst horizontally through the earth as they pass, blooming through the mountainside in their wake.

“Mm,” Haru hums, not paying them much attention. “Me neither. It’s been weeks, I think.”

“I think it’s been over a month for me,” Rin speculates, biting at his lip. “Come to think of it, I haven’t even seen them swimming around down here. Kinda suspicious if you ask me.”

“Suspicious?” Haru asks, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“Well, they should have grown by now, right? Don’t you think we’d have seen them? Especially on the first day.”

“That’s true.” Haru admits, reaching up to wipe a bead of sweat away as they finally step off of the last step on the mountainside and into the sand of the lakeshore. One last flower, quicker and more insistent than the others, grows up and out towards Rin until the pointed edges of its petals touch his shoulder. It breathes a quiet inquiry into his ear and he laughs when it shifts and flickers tiny glowing embers onto his collar. They don’t burn, he knows that from experience, but they are a pain to remove. Even still, he reaches a hand up and pets the underside of the flower’s petals, leans over and gently pushes his nose against the eye of it.

His clement affections seem appropriately agreeable to the flower, which curls back towards the mountainside and flourishes; it spreads like a vine across the dirt, reaching impossibly wide and encouraging several flowers to bloom along it’s threads. Rin turns back to Haru as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened and frowns, still contemplating, when Haru says, “Maybe they were on vacation as well.”

After a moment Rin nods his head, receptive to that deduction. “Oh, I never thought of that!”

They’re still holding hands by the time they walk around the bend and into the hidden cove behind their university, sweating beneath their clothing. They let go of one another as Haru slips out of his clothes as quick as a sigh, standing there looking out over the waves in nothing but his purple jammers with his clothes thrown haphazardly into and over his backpack.

He doesn’t think about the fact that Rin is getting _naked_ behind him, that he must be peeling those skinny jeans off of each leg before bending down to grab his legskins from his bag. He hears him moving about and uttering a few curses before Rin finally comes to stand beside him, smirking and stretching his arms.

Rin gives him an exasperated look and says, “I folded your clothes and put them in your bag. Otherwise you’d get wrinkles, idiot.”

“Thank you.” Haru’s eyes are intense, swirling like riptides, and Rin knows it’s partly to do with the impending submergence into the lake and partly to do with Rin doting on him. Flushing to his ears, Rin bobs his head once in a small nod and heads towards the lake, only stopping when the icy grip of the water is at his waist.

They both look again to the deep waters, watching as a herd of winged whales leap and fly over the surface, barely touching the water. There are glowing spirits joining them, looking like nothing more than iridescent bubbles racing over the surface; the only indicator that they aren’t simply bubbles is the melodic tune that reverberates from them as they fly. Every movement they make creates a quiet symphony, though it spreads out wide and vast over the shimmering surface and reaches their ears easily enough.

Rin glances over his shoulder and Haru takes a moment to stare at him, half submerged with the sun beaming down over him, the wide expanse of the lake rushing behind him and that unshakable shining glow beaming around him. Rin chews on his lip, says, “So, you coming or what?”

Haru’s meets him halfway and stops just beside him, blinking slowly. The reflection of the sun’s rays on the surface of the water is near blinding, but Haru loves it nonetheless. He turns to Rin and reaches a hand up, grasping his throat with gentle fingers, treating him as delicately as though he were painted glass.

He keeps his eyes open for as long as he can, taking in the smooth transitional changes of Rin’s expressions as Haru does magic in front of him, _to him_ , until his focus necessitates that he close them. He hones all of his energy, everything that he’d taught himself so long ago, and feels it begin to bubble up inside of him like an erupting volcano; the energy sizzles in his veins, races through his body to get to his fingertips. His focus is paramount; there can be no mistakes when Rin’s safety is at hand. When his fingertips feel electric and filled to bursting, he whispers, “ _Aqua Aer_ ,” and opens his eyes to watch the gills, eight slim lines of them, split open like unstitched seams against Rin’s skin.

He watches each of them unfold one at a time, touches them with gentle fingertips, makes sure that their size and texture are textbook accurate. Rin is smiling, his breathing shifting to accommodate his new anatomy; the breaths coming from his mouth become less pronounced and far softer. He grins at Haru and thanks him, though he didn’t need to, and Haru nods his head, double-checking each gill, making sure everything is perfect.

“It gets quicker and less weird every time you do it,” Rin praises, lifting a hand to gently rub at the four gills on the left side of his neck. “You’re really improving, Haru.”

“I’m glad.” Haru returns, smiling a little at the compliment. “Test it out.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Rin promises, his smile a trophy, a reward. Haru tucks it away for safekeeping. “It always is.”

Haru nods his head, rubbing at the back of his neck because Rin is so _embarrassing_ and he doesn’t even realize it, but he’s adamant about safety. Especially Rin’s. So he repeats himself, mutters, “Just test it out, okay?”

“Fine, fine.” Rin flaps his hand at him with an exhale and dives down into the water, utterly trusting that Haru’s magical skill is adept enough to work flawlessly. He stays underwater for a long enough time that Haru knows he’s proving a point, making Haru roll his eyes even as he touches his own neck and refocuses his energy with a breathy, “ _Aqua Aer_.“

Rin emerges through the surface and whips his hair out of his face, holding his thumbs up and grinning eagerly at Haru.

“Like I said: flawless.”

“It doesn’t hurt to check.”

“How’s yours?” Rin asks, running his hands through his hair to push it off of his face. Haru’s heart races in his chest at the gesture and he decides that now is as good a time as any to submerge himself. He slinks into the water and opens his eyes, clearing his vision and kicking himself into deeper water where the wildlife is more visible. He inhales and there’s no choking sensation, no sputtering or burning—everything is as Rin had said: flawless.

He turns over his shoulder and sees Rin grinning as he swims to him, the red of his hair bright enough to be a part of the Miracle Reef on the other side of the castle, known for it’s plethora of vibrant colors and textures, though one had to go extremely deep in order to see it. It was sort of a miracle in and of itself that something so deep in the lake remains so bright, especially when the light only just barely touches it.

Rin swims up beside him and together they head towards the northwest edge of the lake, where the shores brush up against the charred edges of the Firelands, a barren wasteland of stone, onyx, and bone; where students learn about, interact with, and even in special cases speak with dragons. Of course, in order to manage meeting with a dragon there are several hurdles one first has to jump. For instance, only the upperclassmen are allowed to meet them, and they only show up in certain times of the year and only when the weather is to their liking. Dragons are unsurprisingly fastidious when it comes to compromise.

Amongst the upperclassmen attending North Shore University only a unique few are able to open telepathic channels and communicate with them; these students are said to have an inherent magical makeup, where their energy levels are more synonymous with that of the dragons, and it allows for them to access the Ascension Channels needed to overcome verbal communication. Scholars have been studying the phenomenon for years now, and though most of what they’ve come up with doesn’t designate causation, it is highly likely that those who can speak with the dragons have completely inimitable electrical connections within their neuronal networks that allow for their neurons to pick up the highly electrical currents of the dragons’ communication systems.

Haru can’t exactly remember how old he’d been when he’d realized that the disjointed buzzing somewhere in the distance was dragon chatter, but by the time he could speak fluently and walk steadily on his own two legs, Haru was also fluent in dragonspeak.

Even now, swimming so close to the Firelands, Haru can hear one dragon talking in her sleep. He smiles, sliding through the water as skillfully as he can without magically giving himself fins—he hasn’t quite figured that level of magic out yet, and some internet horror stories he’s read about attempts have sort of scarred him into forced patience. He’ll just wait for his classes to teach him something that high-level.

Giving Rin and himself gills is enough of an achievement, really. They swim close together until the schools of relatively small, fluorescent-bellied fish with their racing stripes and glittering spots change into saber-toothed luminescent fish with multiple eyes and fins. Once they hit the smattering of translucent jellyfish fields, they slow their pace and come to a stop.

They stay there, treading water so as to not go too deep and yet remain far enough below the surface to be noticeable, waiting for their scent to work as a calling card. They wait a little longer than they’re used to, playing games with one another to pass the time as the wildlife around them continues to thrash and thrive. This far into the lake, they’re surrounded by reefs and coral, by seaweed fields that go so deep it would be impossible to find one’s way out of them without an escort. The fish, while predatory, leave them alone in lieu of smaller and more easily caught prey. Even the few sharks that pass by don’t pay them much attention, which surprises Rin enough to make his eyes widen the first time he sees one, though Haru thinks there’s more excitement there than fear—and that’s so typical of Rin.

It’s when the sharks ignore them that Haru knows they won’t be waiting much longer, that their friends have scented their presence and sent out warnings to their surroundings, clear as a siren: _don’t touch these humans_.

He smiles, reaching out and touching Rin’s shoulder as he watches a massive shark breeze by them, it’s beady eyes staring unblinkingly in their direction. Rin turns to him with cheeks puffed up and eyes wide as saucers, pointing and shaking his head in disbelief. Haru nods, laughing a little.

“It’s okay,” he says, and his voice is appropriately distorted. “They’re almost here.”

“Oh,” Rin’s cheeks deflate and he grins, doing a showy back flip. “Good.”

Haru shakes his head, rolls his eyes and turns to glance to his left where a flicker of movement large enough to make him focus on it grabs his attention. He sees the razor sharp edge of a massive tailfin touch the light spilling through the depths and then waft back into the shadows, so swift it’s difficult to be certain he hadn’t imagined it in the first place.

But then he hears them, the trilling melodious lilt of their greeting, and he watches as Fineen soars out of the shadows completely, her translucent skin catching the light and letting it bleed right through her. Her cheeks are pointed like shields, her lips an open blood red sneer full of pointed shards. Her hair is as magnificent and remarkable as he remembers it from the last time he’d seen her, flickering flames underwater with the texture of smoke, wispy and dispersing. Her reflective eyes push the sunlight straight towards them, flickering with every one of her glances, unfazed by the slice of her depthless pupils.

The most human aspect of her is her torso, but even then the comparison is a stretch. Her arms are jagged like lightning bolts and just as dangerous, her chest covered in scaled plating very similar to a dragon’s natural body armor—understandable, since they are cousins of sorts, dragons of the sea. Her vertebrae stand out from her skin, stretching each knob tight and sharp enough to break skin should one test a touch.

Her tail is the same as Haru remembers; magnificently midnight maroon, like blood spilled over still water, longer than an entire frigate.

Behind him, Haru hears Rin laugh gaily, shouting out a greeting to Cassian, who has apparently appeared before him. Haru turns over his shoulder and smiles at the massive merman with his pinprick eyes and his eternal grin. His shoulders and arms are larger and sharper than Fineen’s, imposing with every crackle of movement. His tail is a little shorter and rather than the deep scarlet of Fineen’s, Cassian’s is as black as the onyx structure of their university, the scales catching the light in silver strikes. His black smoky hair unfurls around him, reaching and muddled, large enough to get lost in, just another tool in a predator’s arsenal of weapons.

A predator that reaches out and cups Rin fondly in the palm of his hand, brings him in close so that Rin can kiss his pinprick cheek.

Haru turns back to the outstretched fingers of Fineen’s translucent skin with a smile and says, “Long time no see.”

 

✧

 

Rin and Haru make it a bi-weekly routine to swim deep into the lake and spend time with Fineen and Cassian, though their classes and their workloads increase enough to make each trip a little more trying than the last.

Haru doesn’t mind the workload and finds the subject material both interesting and rejuvenating. There isn’t much that gives him room to be bored, not with magical creatures surrounding him and lessons on divination through the characters of written language and all of the other incredible things he’s learning at North Shore University.

Rin seems content with his classes as well, with a particularly present enjoyment of Lithomancy. However, he is not prepared for, has never expected to _need_ to be prepared for, the sudden and uncomfortable result of an unfortunate accident in his Potions class.

Apparently Rin, who had just the night prior been swimming in the lake with Haru, had caught something of a cold and had sneezed directly into a charms potion intended to make the user more endearing to others. Needless to say, the potion was a glittered substance that ended up all over Rin’s face, hair, and clothing and has now left him with a strangely appealing quality that only animals pick up on.

Nanase Haruka had never laughed harder before hearing this story. _Of course_ Rin would sneeze into a charm potion, _of course_ it would only work on animals. He’d been laughing too hard to pause and ask how Rin had messed the formula up so badly that it didn’t even translate to his same _species_ and Rin had been so exasperated with him that he’d stormed off before he could garner his neutrality.

So now, two days and several showers with furious scrubbing later, Haru watches Rin trudge out of the tree line with hands tucked deep into his pockets and a scowl on his face.

Tiny, delicately crafted birds flutter over his head, singing tunes like springtime hymns as several ice-crested mules trail behind him, too slow to keep up with his pace. The assortment of animals surrounding the redhead amazes even Haru, who stares wide-eyed and wary at the faceless bear, who on all four legs is still taller than Rin’s full height, and the small pack of snow-tailed foxes trailing on either side of him. Spotted wolves, fire-breathing hares, nightshade butterflies, a plethora of woodland critters and creatures all flutter back and forth around his feet, at times almost causing him to trip.

Rin glances up and catches Haru’s awed stare and throws his hands out to the sides helplessly, his mouth an open cry for help. Haru laughs, low and fair under his breath, lifting a fist to hide his smiling mouth from view. He takes a few steps forward, hesitant, still eyeing that faceless bear sitting on its haunches just a few feet behind Rin’s walking form.

For the most part, the animals don’t react to his presence at all. He has to walk through a swarm of nightshade butterflies and around three snow-tailed foxes just to get to Rin’s side. His big blue eyes flicker over Rin’s expression, his narrow eyes and the bags underneath, and then to his shoulders, to his hood and the pair of eyes peeking out from behind it.

“There’s a lemur in your hood.” Haru says, ever helpful.

“Oh,” Rin says, voice pitched high and thrown out readily sarcastic. “Is there? Hadn’t noticed.”

Haru leans around his shoulder and swallows when the faceless bear chuffs, turning in his direction. Chills rise over his skin because he _thinks_ it might be staring at him. He’s fairly certain.

“Did you also not notice the faceless bear behind you?” Haru asks, genuinely curious. Rin’s already shaking his head, sighing.

“He was the first to show up, actually. Freaked me out enough that I ran screaming to my apartment only to find him looking through my window.”

“You live on the fourth floor.”

“Haru, he’s a bear.”

Haru nods his head, understanding that sometimes weird creatures are capable of weird feats that human minds, even magically altered, cannot understand. Rin sighs again, turning over his shoulder and reaching a hand out towards the bear. Haru has the words _wait_ and _don’t_ loaded in the pit of his throat like bullets, heavy and brash, but they fizzle out and are swallowed down when the bear merely lifts a mighty claw and gently pokes at Rin’s hand.

“I can’t believe this,” Haru breathes, watching the animals move closer, surrounding Rin in close arcs, shaking and mewling and fleaing.

Rin huffs, “You and me both, man.” But he’s gentle with the bear’s claw, careful when he turns away and reaches down to pet a spotted wolf with mouth agape and tongue lolling out. It’s got a mouth full of yellowed stalactites but Rin doesn’t seem afraid, not even when it gently nips at him before rubbing against his leg.

“You know, I was thinking,” Haru starts, frowning a little in thought. “Doesn’t this make you a princess?”

Rin sputters, the first erratic movement he’s made in days. “What?”

“Aren’t princesses the ones who are always friends with woodland creatures?”

“Woodland creatures? I have a _faceless bear_ following me.”

“Yeah, but maybe it’s variant. Like it depends on the location. North Shore University has always been the home of faceless bears and their breeding grounds.”

“Haru…” Rin warns, halfheartedly threatening. Haru shrugs, reaches a hand up to rub at his jaw and hide his smile.

He says, pensive, “I’m surprised the glow doesn’t bother any of them.”

Rin is reeling, trying to find purchase on solid ground. “What? What glow? What’s happening right now? Haru!”

Haru shrugs, a little frazzled that he still can’t figure out the origin behind that shine or how long it’s been there or the most frightening and nonsensical thought of all: if it has _always_ been there. He doesn’t have the capacity to entertain it right now, not when Rin’s agitation seems to be spilling out across the arcs of creatures surrounding them, making them restless, bringing them up to whine. So instead, Haru shakes his head.

“Never mind. But this definitely makes you a princess.”

Rin stares at him, mouth agape, eyes wide, cheeks pink; Haru looks on, simply amused.

“Haru, you say some really incredible things, you know that?” Rin mutters, slowly shaking his head, as if in disbelief. Haru merely stares back at him, fond and complacent. There’s a long moment of silence where Rin seems to be backtracking, trying to understand the points in the conversation that he’d clearly missed, before his shoulders rise and fall with a heavy sigh, expunging him of his concerns.

“Anyways,” he sniffs, toeing lightly at the paw of the closest fox. The lithe creature mewls at him, not an unkind gesture but a playful one, and Rin smiles. “This honestly isn’t so bad.”

He turns to look at a wolf by his leg with a lopsided smile and Haru knows instantly that Rin has spent time with these animals in the few nights they’ve been following him, time enough to be fond of them, maybe even to have named them. Haru wouldn’t put it past him.

“But how am I going to get to class? I’m _serious_.” He glares when Haru snorts, his eyes big and pleading.

“Have you talked to Professor Amakata about this?”

Rin nods. “Of course. She’s been guiding me through the process of making the remedial formula. She could’ve had it done in a few hours but wanted me to learn it, ‘for future reference,’ she said. It’ll be done by tonight.”

“Mm.” Haru watches Rin’s face as he glances from animal to animal, the tenderness in his eyes and the gentleness of his hands. He moves slowly, cautiously, but there’s not a single ounce of fear in him. Everything is premeditated, intended for the least amount of surprise—it’s incredibly clear that he doesn’t want to startle any of the creatures. Haru feels his heart swell and his cheeks heat and he wants desperately for Rin’s hands, his fingers, so gentle, so loving, to reach for him in a similar way.

“Hey,” he says, embarrassed that he’s a little breathless. He swallows when Rin looks back to him, eyes wide and alluring, hiding nothing. “Why don’t we skip class today?”

“Skip class?” Rin tastes the thought, rolls it around in his mouth and bites it down into his lower lip. Then, slow and steady as a sunrise, he smiles. His eyes swirl like the constantly churning magma-laden walls of a volcano and Haru feels the heat straight through his bones.

“Okay, yeah. Let’s skip class.”

Haru grins, and his eyes match the heat of Rin’s smile with the promise of some alone time between them. _Well_ , he thinks, looking at the multitude of narrow and slit-eyed gazes, _sort of alone_.

“I’ve been practicing this spell,” he begins, reaching into his back pocket where he keeps his planner. He pulls it out and flips through the charred and singed pages, glancing up a few times with heated cheeks when he sees Rin notice the sorry state of them—when practicing great things sometimes there comes great consequences. Surely Rin, of all people, can understand and appreciate that.

Haru clears his throat, slightly abashed, until he finds the page he’s looking for and points to the line where he’s written the incantation and the possible effects. Rin’s eyes narrow as he leans in and reads over Haru’s neat and tidy script, brows dropping skeptically low when he finishes.

“A doppelganger?” he asks, dubious. “I’ve seen your doppelgangers, Haru. No offense, but they’re kind of terrible. I mean, yeah, they work—and I will never understand how because honestly they’re so glaring—but they’re…just...”

Haru smiles, eyes bright enough to be clear as ice. “I’ve upgraded them.”

Rin stares, eyes flickering to each of Haru’s, wide and concerned. He swallows, licks his lip, says, “You’ve upgraded them.”

Haru nods, proud and just this side of smug. “They respond now.”

Rin blinks, once. He reaches a hand up and rubs at his forehead and repeats, “They respond now.”

“Mm.”

“Haru the last doppelganger I saw was one you made for me and it looked like mashed potatoes with string bean eyebrows and phoenix feathers for hair.”

“You remember,” Haru breathes, completely missing the part where Rin lacks faith in Haru’s ability and unshakeable resolve and focusing entirely on one of his magic tricks lasting in Rin’s memory. “I spent months harvesting those phoenix feathers.”

Rin’s eyes go wide, his mouth plopping open with a gasp. “They were _real_?”

“Of course,” Haru says, beaming in his own underhanded way. “And anyways, I’ve gotten better.”

Rin’s hesitant, his expression still a little skeptical, but there’s a shining in his eyes that matches the glow around him and Haru watches, slightly spellbound, as Rin inhales through his smile and bobs his head. He says, “Okay, alright, I trust you.”

His smile is sunlight pouring through the ocean’s surface and Haru struggles to breathe around the adoration stuck in his throat because of it; he blinks, a slow and dazed reaction, and Rin says, “Wanna go play in the forest, then?”

Haru breathes in, smells saltwater and evergreen pine on the breeze, and breathes out.

He takes a step closer and threads his fingers through Rin’s hand, inhaling the surprised gasp Rin emits, and starts them off towards the tree line with their army of creatures marching behind.

“Follow closely, princess.”

 

✧

 

The days between them and their finals seem to disappear as swiftly as the animals around Rin had. Professor Amakata and Rin had successfully created the remedy to his animal problem and just a day after Rin started taking it he was almost completely animal-free. A few of them linger even after the remedy, though, like the foxes and a few of the exotic birds. He’d admitted to Haru a few days afterwards that he sort of missed the multitude, though it is certainly nice to go to the bathroom in his own house without finding critters scampering by his feet and a faceless bear peering through the window.

With Rin’s animal situation mostly dissipating, finals become the newfound center of focus for the both of them. Haru isn’t worried, not really. He’s been studying adequately and he knows his stuff; if he’s concerned about anything it’s the fact that his investigation into Rin’s glow is still unsolved. He’s been spending countless hours in the school’s grand library, using doppelgangers to help him take in more information quicker even though that is, technically, illegal on university grounds.

Rin, on the other hand, is a storm of concerns and worries over finals week. For the most part, he had been content to let Haru do his own thing and try to get himself together enough to do well on his finals without interrupting Haru’s strange need to constantly visit the library to ask him to help him study. When he’d asked about those trips, Haru had merely stared at him until Rin got embarrassed enough to clear his throat and change the subject. He isn’t curious enough to press, anyways; Haru’s the kind of person that, when he finds an interest, he sticks with it and keeps it as close to the chest as he possibly can.

Rin knows this fact incredibly well.

So it takes a few weeks before Rin starts to crack on the surface, his anxiety slipping through and reaching into Haru’s bubble of awareness. Haru is certain that he hasn’t slept more than five hours in two days and he plans to fix that _immediately_ , radiance investigation and finals study sessions be damned.

This is why he shows up on Rin’s doorstep at two in the afternoon with a backpack full of ingredients and a stern expression that creases the skin between his eyebrows. He rings Rin’s doorbell and waits a long moment, shifting his feet and rubbing the hem of his navy jacket between his pointer finger and thumb, a listless habit.

Rin opens the door and Haru stares at him, expression deadpan. As if the inexplicably tussled and greasy hair, the bags under his eyes, and the gauntness of his cheeks isn’t enough to make Haru overcome with concern, there are now flickering movements coming from underneath the plain white shirt Rin is wearing, too.

“Hey,” Rin says, as if he doesn’t look like Death visiting the living realm, as if there isn’t something swirling over his abdomen and chest like a portal.

“Rin,” Haru says, not unstable. “You are done studying for today.”

“What?” Rin’s eyes go wide, his mouth popping open. His lips are chapped and Haru lifts a hand almost absentmindedly to run a fingertip over Rin’s lower lip, clicking his tongue.

“I’m going to make you food.”

Rin brightens in an instant, his expression coloring slightly. It’s a good look, both because it makes him seem healthier than he is and because it makes him even cuter. He says, “Really?” and Haru nods, stepping past him and walking into his kitchenette. He sets his backpack on the counter and immediately sets out all of the ingredients he’s brought, lining them up neatly on Rin’s counter. Then, after he turns on the stove and puts a pot on the flame, he turns and heads over to Rin’s dining room table where he has three textbooks and several loose sheets of paper spread out.

He marks the pages and closes each book, ignoring Rin’s flabbergasted gasp and the way he flutters over to try to undo what damage Haru has done. Haru turns to him, face stern, every line of him uncompromising. He holds a finger up and blocks Rin’s path, frowning as he shakes his head.

“Go sit at the counter, Rin. I’m making mackerel.” And then, almost as an afterthought, he adds, “With curry spices.”

Rin’s expression twists, a mixture of regret for his notes and longing for the spicy dish Haru is going to prepare. At long last, he relents, allowing a heavy sigh to droop his shoulders as he heads over to the counter and sits on his barstool. After Haru straightens his studying supplies and places them neatly on the floor by the edge of the couch, he heads back into the kitchenette and begins to prepare the meal. He glances over his shoulder and finds Rin lying with his head on his arms, his eyelids heavy and drooping as he tries to stay awake long enough to watch Haru cook.

Haru heads over to his tiny pantry, a hole in the wall, really, and pulls out the apron he knows Rin keeps there for him. He glances over his shoulder as he finishes tying the bow behind his tailbone and says, “You can nap, if you’d like.”

Rin grunts, soft and low; it’s a dismissal. “Wanna watch you.”

Haru turns back to the stove, if only to hide the fact that his cheeks are pink and he’s smiling. He lifts a hand and hides his lips anyways, closing his eyes for a moment and leaning on the counter until he has his heart under control again. It’s a drum line under his skin, a constant reminder that Rin can throw him out of sync as easily as he pleases.

He clears his mind as best as he can and returns to preparing the food, his focus paramount. He adds more spice than he usually does, knowing that Rin will enjoy the food more because of it. Every movement he makes is controlled, the delicate flick of his wrist precise and his attention unwavering as he cooks the mackerel. He wants this meal to give Rin the nutrients that Haru is certain his body needs but he also wants to make sure that it tastes as good as possible. The flickering thought of cooking for Rin every day and how happy that would make him comes and goes like a single wave against the shore, leaving nothing behind but the faint damp feeling of a soft spot the size of the ocean itself.

A little over a half an hour later, Haru has made enough food to last Rin two days. He prepares Rin’s plate and turns with it in hand, mouth opening to tell him that it’s finished when he sees the redhead with his head still down, though this time his cheek is plastered to the marble countertop instead of his arm. He’s breathing out of his mouth, each breath long and deep, and he’s drooling.

Haru sighs, turns back to the counter and puts all of the food he’s just made into plastic containers. He leaves the lids off so that the food can cool, and sets an alarm on his phone to remind him to put everything in the fridge later once it’s cooled completely. He slides the apron over his head and hangs it back in the pantry, heading to the sink to wash his hands. He wipes them on the towel by the sink and turns back to Rin with a fond expression, eyes soft and heart heavy.

He heads around the counter and stands over Rin for a moment, deciding what to do with him. He studies his expression, so open and guileless in sleep, and finds himself reaching out to touch the delicate curve of Rin’s chin, inexplicably tender. Rin is snoring quietly and it does nothing to the fondness radiating within Haru’s chest, if anything it only adds to his amused affection.

With a quiet sigh, he slides an arm underneath Rin’s legs and another behind his neck. He pulls him in to the cavern of his chest, presses him close even when he starts to rouse, and shuffles them over to Rin’s bedroom. Rin presses his nose and lips to Haru’s throat, leaving a cold wet trail there, and Haru wonders if he knows what he’s _doing_.

He sets him down on his bed and pulls his arms away, clucking his tongue again though he can’t help but smile fondly at Rin’s peaceful expression. He wonders how long it really has been since he’s slept, and moves to pull the covers over him. Rin’s eyes blink open, slowly, blearily, and he watches Haru tuck the blanket over and around him. When Haru makes to leave, he reaches out and catches his wrist, too tired to be surprised at his own boldness.

“Sleep,” he mumbles, voice raspy. “C’mon, stay.”

Haru’s chest tightens, his airway feels dry, and he wonders if this much is okay. He hesitates, doesn’t want to take advantage, but Rin just sighs and forces himself backwards across the bed and yanks Haru down in front of him. Haru lands with a bounce, eyes wide and face far closer to Rin’s than either of them had intended. Neither complains, however.

Rin shuts his eyes and opens his mouth to say something, loses the words in his exhaustion, and his breathing starts to level out again. Haru smiles, a soft change, and reaches up to tuck some of Rin’s hair behind his ear. His fingers remain against his cheek, light as a dream, and Rin sighs into unconsciousness.

With a gentleness that only Rin can bring out in him, Haru presses their foreheads together until they’re so close their noses are almost touching. His hands fold up between them and he rests one beneath his cheek and the other on top of Rin’s hand, a cautious exploration. Their knees touch and Haru thinks that there isn’t a single expression of magic in the world that can ever come close to the wonder of this moment—of this _feeling_.

Haru closes his eyes, falls asleep pressed close to the one he loves, and dreams of the color red.

 

✧

 

Haru’s alarm wakes both of them up a few hours later, with Rin blinking groggily up at Haru’s glacier eyes, a slow smile starting to form. Haru stares at him, watches the shift of his expression into something like delight, and feels his heart give a squeeze in his chest.

“Sorry,” he apologizes, holding up his phone. He flips the blanket off of him and slides around so that his feet are touching the floor, stretching his back a bit before standing with a silent yawn. “I have to put the food away.

“Okay, no problem.” Rin says, yawning loudly like some great beast. Then, once reality has caught up to him, he shoots up into a sitting position on the bed, hair in disarray, and gasps, “The _food_!”

Haru doesn’t turn to look at him until he’s at the doorway, and his expression doesn’t change. He says, in a lazy tone still slightly rough from sleep, “It’s okay.”

Rin rubs the heels of his palms against his eyes and groans. “ _Dang_ it. You were so cute, too, cooking for me and everything and what do I do? I fall asleep on you.” He groans again, his hands dropping to his sides as he stares up at the ceiling, shaking his head.

Haru, for his part, positively _preens_ at being called cute; he puffs right up like a tropical dual-tailed peacock and turns to Rin with fire in his eyes, wanting desperately to kiss him. Instead, he says, “Rin, it’s okay, really. We can eat it together later. And it’s not like I won’t ever cook for you again, either.”

Rin glances over at him, cheeks aflame. Haru wonders at that, thinks maybe Rin is more aware of what he’d said than Haru had originally thought.

“Promise?” he asks, his tone so close to pleading Haru starts to contemplate if he’s doing this on _purpose_. He licks his lips and nods, tapping his hand against the doorframe twice before heading over to the kitchen to put the food in the fridge. The entire front room smells like fish and he hopes that that won’t bother Rin too much, but even so, maybe it’ll be incentive enough to get him out of his apartment. He glances over to the window by the front door just as a kitsune flashes past, small and bright like the white-hot light of the sun; with it’s shadow sliding across the window comes a tiny mewl that lingers through the framework of Rin’s apartment, like a distant echo, slowly fading. Haru tries to see where it’s headed, but it’s gone just as soon as it had come and he finds himself giving up the chase.

When he comes back into Rin’s room, the redhead is sprawled out on his back over the entirety of the bed, a goofy smile on his face. When Haru clears his throat, the smiles flits away and Rin’s cheeks pinken again, his brows furrowing. His white shirt is lifted a little, exposing the bottom half of his tanned abs and now partly exposing the mysterious movement that Haru had seen earlier and had forgotten about, when Rin had opened the door for him.

“What’s that on your stomach?” he asks, and watches as Rin’s eyes come over to his, bright with pride.

“Oh, these?” He says, sitting up and lifting his shirt enough to expose his chest as well. “This is my Creative Arts final! Apparently no one has ever thought of putting moving tattoos on themselves before.”

Haru’s eyes widen, his brows lifted. “Are they permanent?”

Rin snorts. “Of course not. They’re easy enough to add and remove, really. It’s all in your focus.”

After a contemplative moment of silence between them, in which the only sound that can be heard is the low groaning of a distant Bake-kujira, probably just cresting the bend on the other side of the mountains, just behind their university, Rin rubs the back of his neck and says, “I could teach you sometime, if you’d like.”

Haru nods before he even realizes he’s doing so, but even after the fact there’s no hesitation or regret—the tattoos aren’t permanent, after all. Even still, he trusts Rin. Completely.

“What’s that one on your chest, there?” Haru asks, shuffling his feet in the doorway, curiosity making a bubbling cauldron out of his insides.

Rin glances at his chest where a spiral of curving black lines and sparkling glacier blue flutters in a small arc around his heart.

“Ah,” he sighs, rubbing at the back of his hair and making it even more tussled than before. “This? It’s a bioluminescent sakura blossom. They’re extremely rare and incredibly beautiful. It…they remind me of someone.”

Rin clears his throat as Haru watches the flower slowly twirl over the skin of his chest, then gradually pick up speed, fluttering back and forth in constantly winding arcs.

“It’s getting quicker,” Haru notes, blinking. Rin flushes up to his ears and looks away, absentmindedly rubbing a hand against his side.

He mutters, “Sometimes they react to physiological changes.” He doesn’t elaborate, but it’s not like he needs to. Haru feels a little breathless in response.

Rin looks close to passing out, though, so he decides to quietly clear his throat and glance away, giving him the time to compose himself. Rin, however, remains flustered and even begins to explain some of his other flashing and flickering tattoos, wanting and needing to fill the air with his voice.

“I’ve also got a kitsune, and an ace card on my side. There’s a sunflower on the inside of my right bicep.”

“Rin,” Haru interrupts, voice not unkind. “Are you hungry?”

Rin’s eyes cut over to him, his smile slow and sweet. He looks like the first day of spring. He sighs, relieved, and says, “Yeah. Yeah I am.”

Haru nods down the hall and waits for Rin to get off the bed, watches him approach with that effortless, casual grace of his, and lets his bangs slide forward to hide his eyes. Rin’s glowing again and it’s prominent enough to make Haru’s heart work a little harder than it needs to; his shoulders are tense and he feels like every time he looks at Rin and sees him shining it’s like he’s standing on a precipice, waiting to fall.

“Haru?” Rin asks, voice low and close. Haru inhales, turns to face him and is met with a frown. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Haru fibs, wondering about the mechanics of falling even as he feels his toes push over the ledge. “Let’s eat.”

The temperature in Rin’s apartment is comfortable, but all the same, Haru swears he can feel a saltwater breeze.

 

✧

 

“Are you sure this is okay?”

Haru blinks, turning over his shoulder to look down at a noticeably nervous Rin. “It’s okay.”

“Haru,” Rin breathes, playing with his hands, wide eyes flashing over the length of the midnight dragon Haru is currently astride. A deep rumble groans in the long throat of it, it’s nostrils flaring. Eyes like pinpricks into a new universe, blinding and impossible to meet directly, flicker and disappear behind slow, careless blinks. It’s easily as long as Fineen though its frame is far more lithe; it is supine, flexible and coated with thin plates of natural armor that glitter under the moonlight.

This dragon is unlike any that Rin has ever seen before in real life; in fact, the only time he can remember having seen one such as this is in textbooks of old. There’s a flicker of electric wonder that flutters through his mind, makes him wonder how in the world Haru had ever managed to meet this creature and befriend him.

He watches the way Haru’s hands, so slight and gentle, thread through the wispy mane atop the dragon’s head. He’s sitting between four sets of lithe horns that flow backwards from the dragon’s head, the longer protruding set tipping up slightly at the ends while the shorter, more forward facing horns tip down. Rin watches as the beast shakes his mighty head, jostling Haru but not throwing him, and Haru soothes him with quiet words Rin can’t hear—even still, he knows the words, Haru’s voice, is for Rin’s benefit.

After all, Haru is fluent in dragonspeak, can speak with any dragon with just the electrical chemistry of his brain.

The dragon settles, shifts slightly and in the process emphasizes the long trail of fur that follows the elegant line of him from head to the very tip of his incredibly long tail, a raging trail of amethyst fire. Unlike most dragons that Rin has had the pleasure of seeing, this dragon has not one set of claws but two; long muscled arms in front and curled, hunched hind legs in back, all with onyx daggers for claws.

However magnificent to see, these characteristics are not the outstanding factors with enough power to bring Rin to a helpless feeling of awe. No, it is the wings of the creature that make him feel unworthy of standing so close, of laying his eyes on the dragon’s scaled skin.

They’re not quite wings at all, really. There is no recognizable wing shape, no looming web and accompanying clawed thumbs. No, instead there is a swirling portal of effervescent energy storming behind its shoulders, every line of it incandescent, painful even to look upon. Rin’s mouth runs dry as he listens close and hears obscure whispers spilling from the void in languages he’s never heard, cannot even imagine exist, dark and rumbling like the looming shockwave of a distant explosion. His heart races beneath his chest, beating out a call to flee, his adrenaline spiking.

And yet there is Haru, looking down at him with that gentle grin, eyes soft and sure and so warm that Rin’s heart is lulled by the pull of it. He takes a step forward and swallows, watching with shaking hands and wide eyes as the dragon lifts one mightily clawed hand out to him and clicks it’s great teeth together to encourage him. Not the best encouragement but Rin steps into his hand nonetheless, eyes never leaving Haru’s.

The dragon lifts him up past the swirling void and lets him slide down so that he’s sitting in front of Haru, nestled in the dip of his groin. Haru leans forward and rests his chin against Rin’s shoulder, touches his lips there once because he can’t help himself, and repeats, “It’s okay.”

Rin’s knuckles are white as he holds on with a death grip to the dragon’s mane, jerkily nodding his head and losing his breath altogether when the great beast dips and then leaps into the air without even a warning to prepare them. He presses back into Haru’s chest partly from the momentum, the force of the dragon’s speed and power, and partly because he _needs_ to. He doesn’t scream but it’s a close thing. He thinks he hears the dragon make some sort of chortling sound but dismisses it, until he looks back at Haru and sees his expression flowered with amusement, his lips finally opening around laughter like bell chimes.

“Are you guys laughing at me?” Rin yells, cheeks flaming.

Haru beams at him as he wraps his arms around Rin’s waist and snuggles against him, too happy to restrain himself. “Yes,” he says, and there’s genuine serenity in his voice. “We are laughing at you.”

Rin turns back to face the front, cheeks and ears flaming, but there’s a smile he can’t wipe from his face. He watches the stars flicker by and eventually he even unclenches a fist from the dragon’s mane to reach out, his mind fooled by how stunning they look, how close they appear, thinking that he might be able to touch one. Up this high and flying this fast, the world is transformed into something new, something unknown and beautiful that makes Rin think about alternate universes, of portals and the reality of so many worlds existing on a single planet.

They pass over mountains that are dusted lavender and rose with magic and the last vestiges of sunset, fading quickly into utter darkness. The trip to their destination doesn’t take long, though, not with the dragon’s unparalleled speed. Rin still doesn’t quite understand how he’s managing to fly but he’s too afraid to look back into the whispering threshold on his back to wonder too seriously about it. Regardless, they make it to the Spirit Grounds with a surprisingly gentle landing, surrounded by glowing white trees with blood red leaves and faces carved into their bark.

The dragon lifts it’s hand up for them and cradles them carefully until they’re able to touch foot to the ground, turning back to him and watching with awe as this massive creature, as mighty and majestic as untouched galaxies, bows his head to the ground until his snout presses against the radiant soil. Haru and Rin follow suit immediately after, bowing low until their foreheads and hands are pressing into the soil, shivering in surprise at the icy feeling of it.

When they slowly unfurl to their full heights once again, the dragon turns to them with it’s pinprick eyes, the purest form of light, and blows ice-cold air into their faces with enough force to almost knock them over. Haru laughs, though, and Rin wonders what all of this means. He is truly just along for the ride tonight, having been propositioned by Haru and his vague explanations of a place no human has ever visited before, as vast and inexplicable as the deep ocean and just as inaccessible—except for Haru, apparently, who has connections with dragons. How could Rin say no to something like that? Why would he _want_ to?

The dragon nods it’s massive head, a slow movement that Haru returns, and then he’s turning his great body around, the feather soft ends of his tail flickering by to rub underneath Rin’s chin and up against his cheek. He laughs; surprised at the gesture that had felt so _fond_ , and watches the creature leap back into the night sky, flying out of sight quicker than Rin can even believe.

“I think he likes me,” Rin says deferentially as he turns away from the vanishing dragon and back to find Haru’s endlessly blue eyes staring at him. He looks into them with slight shock and is reminded of the portal, the swirling depths of it, the secrets whispered in languages he won’t ever know.

“He likes you,” Haru says, smiling. “He thinks you’re silly.”

Rin scowls. “What, because I was afraid of the massive creature with a void-portal on his back? Yeah, real silly of me.”

“You knew it was a portal?” Haru asks curiously, ignoring Rin’s sarcasm. Rin sputters, blinking and letting his mouth flop open.

“It really was? For real?”

Haru snorts, shaking his head even as he reaches out and threads their fingers together. “Yeah, it was real.”

“Holy heck,” Rin breathes, tightening his grip on Haru’s hand. “He’s coming back, right?”

“Mm,” Haru hums, closing his eyes and taking in the sweet mix of cranberry and mandarin, unique to this inimitable of places. He opens his eyes and tugs Rin forward with him, a playful gesture he pairs with a smile. Rin frowns at him but there’s amusement in his eyes even as he glances all around them, taking in the strange trees that stare back at them, the flowing flickers of spirits through the gaps between them, and even the tufts of steam that spout into the air with every step they take.

“Do you come here a lot?” Rin asks several minutes later when they’re out of the clearing and into the dense forest, sidestepping winged creatures Rin has never seen before and can’t seem to take his eyes off of. They’re luminescent, glowing like stars, and they move quicker than he can register. He’s seen several plants uproot and flutter away as if that is _normal_ and then when he tries to ask Haru about them they burst into flame, fall as ash back to the earth, and rise up again a flourishing plant once more. The cycle of rebirth on this plane is out of Rin’s reach, unable to stabilize and be understood.

“Yes.” Haru answers honestly, breathing in with this new piece of himself he’s sharing with Rin. “I like to study here.”

“You study here.” Rin grunts, bland.

Haru smiles as they break through another tree line and come to a stop in front of a pool of water, glistening like morning and surrounded by flowers tall enough to tickle Rin’s belly button.

“Where better to study magic than in a forest entirely made up of magic?”

“Entirely?” Rin breathes, brows shooting up like stars. He glances around, as if he’s seeing the world through a new lens, and he sort of is. He takes in the water, crystal clear and slowly swirling; the flowers that sway and dance even with no noticeable breeze present; the glowing creatures that flutter around them, singing melodies in frequencies neither of them can decipher, and it’s strange but he feels _at home_.

“Haru,” he whispers, and his eyes fill with tears as enchanting as the pool before them. “Why did you bring me here?”

Haru turns to Rin and slowly, carefully threads their free hands together, every movement meticulous like he’s spinning glass. He brings them up in front of them and leans forward until their foreheads are touching, breathing around the pressure in his chest and the pulse thundering in his veins. The flowers they’re standing in tinker and giggle around them, their feather petals so light. Albino ravens fly overhead, open mouths calling out silent melodies and leaving trails of tiny golden glittering gales in their wake.

“You fit here,” Haru breathes. “I think you might belong here.”

Rin pulls back, surprised. There’s a cascade of emotions running up through him and he feels the unfurling edges of them, soft like gentle touches and bright like Haru’s smile when he gets to swim and he thinks he might finally understand. Their hands are still clasped together and Rin can feel the look Haru’s giving him straight into the very center of his heart where everything he feels about Haru seems to belong.

“What do you mean? This place is incredible—it’s _miraculous_. Everything is bright and glowing and the creatures, they’re all singing.”

 _Don’t you know_ , Haru thinks with an aching heart as heavy as a stone in the rushing sea of his chest, _that’s how you are, too?_

And somehow, some way, in the inexplicable mechanics of a universe with no rules and no instructions, the electrical chemistry of Rin’s brain reaches out with every chemical finger until those unspoken words seep straight into the glowing radiance of Rin’s soul, until he can taste them on the back of his tongue like serenity, like belonging, like love.

Haru and Rin have always met each other halfway.

In friendship, the foundation of their bond has always been about give and take in equal measures, a loving bond both of them foster and constitute and tend, helping it thrive, helping it grow. Just like a plant, they started as a seed of a thought, a flicker of wonder when they met each other’s eyes and felt more than affection but a curling, wispy sense of curiosity, of eager hunger to grow and intertwine with leaves touching and stems coiling together. It was gradual, like growth, and simple, like time. Powerful, like the ocean.

Incredible, like magic.

Rin steps in close, covers the space he’s put between them after Haru finally took that leap—the one that brought them to the edge of a precipice, the one that both of them have been toeing for years, hesitant and curious, needy and insistent. Haru had leapt and there is no way that Rin is going to let him fall, alone.

Haru and Rin have always met each other halfway.

In friendship and in love, through the trials of time and space and change, they will always come together.

Rin steps in close and tilts Haru’s chin up, closes his eyes and feels his cheeks burst with heat, and presses his lips to Haru’s. A single tear slips down his cheek, leaps off of the precipice of his jaw and splashes down onto the icy ground beneath their feet, expelling a single, tiny tuft of steam. He pulls back and opens his eyes and finds tears turning Haru’s eyes glassy and brighter than he’s ever seen them, lifts a gentle thumb to catch the first and wipe it away.

“Sorry it took me so long,” Rin whispers, abashed. He smiles, soft and slow, and holds Haru’s face in his hands.

“It’s okay,” Haru says, voice a little unsteady. “I only just got here, too.”

Give and take, a precipice leapt together, sealed with a kiss; sometimes magic works without incantations or spells or potions or charms, sometimes it works gradually, constant as time, through the inner workings of one’s soul, with red-threaded fingers twining strands of intangible beings together, whispering symphonies into their frameworks.

Haru and Rin rest their foreheads together.

A new shining glow surrounds them both.

 

✧

 

Hours later when Haru and Rin are sitting together, leaning against their returned dragon, and Haru is tracing every line of Rin’s hand with feather light touches, Rin asks, “Haru? What did you mean exactly when you said you think I might belong here?”

Haru blinks, breaking his focus from Rin’s freckled hand and bringing his glacier eyes up to study Rin’s expression. The high points of his cheeks fill with color and he sighs, a great motion that lifts and drops his shoulders heavily enough to make the dragon behind them hum distractedly in its slumber. Even though there’s still a small part of him that thinks that he can still figure out the mystery of Rin’s radiant glow with books and past knowledge, the majority of him notices a lost cause when he sees it. So he lets go of his resolve and is as forthright as he always is, looking up into Rin’s curiously gleaming eyes with a small grin.

“It’s because you glow, too.”

Rin stares at him, his eyebrows slowly dipping down to match the frown of his mouth. “What?”

Haru rolls his eyes. “You’re shining. I noticed it a long time ago and I’ve been trying to figure it out this whole time. There’s a glow around you that I can’t figure out. What kind of magic caused it?”

There’s a long moment of silence, of Rin staring deep into Haru’s eyes, measuring something and then contemplating something else with a seriousness that, at any other time, might’ve been amusing. And then, all at once, Rin emits a long, frustrated groan and lets his head fall back to rest against the dragon’s armored underbelly. Haru’s eyes widen and he’s unsure of how to respond, so instead he just waits, ever patient.

Rin whispers, “So _that’s_ what it is.” And Haru wants to interrupt him, to ask him to clarify, but Rin starts laughing and he can’t interrupt the beauty of the sound, even if he had truly needed to.

“Magic.” Rin says, turning back to Haru with teary eyes wet from laughing so hard and a face flushed with renewed vigor. “All this time you thought it was _magic_. Well, I guess in a way it kind of is.”

“Rin,” Haru says, trying to sound stern. “Explain.”

“This glow,” Rin says, and he’s smiling like he has a secret and Haru’s so close to wanting to kiss it out of him. “This radiance you say I have. It’s not magic, in the physical, manipulated type of magic you and I are familiar with.”

“It’s not,” Haru repeats, hesitant and confused. Rin shakes his head.

“Nope. Wanna know how I know?”

Haru merely stares at him because the answer to that is obvious and he’s getting flustered having to wait for the big reveal. Rin laughs, a bubbly, glittering stream kind of laugh that attracts a glowing kitsune from the tree line, draws it nearer until it’s sitting a few feet away from them, tilting its head in open curiosity.

Rin leans in close to Haru, positively beaming, and says, “It’s because I see you that way too.”

Haru sits back immediately, disbelieving and irritated that Rin is playing games, but then he looks back to Rin’s face and sees how sincere he looks, every line of him drawn earnest and true, his lips no longer stretched open with amusement but lifted only slightly with something like awe.

“I never thought much of it, to be honest. It made sense to me that you were brighter than other people.” Rin shrugs his strong shoulders, adjusts his hoodie and tucks some of his hair behind his ear. “But now that you mention it, and _magic_ , well. Maybe it is a kind of magic. The _strongest_ kind of magic.”

Haru is gaping, he knows he is, but he’s still stuck back on the part where Rin’s glow is _not magic_ , at least, not the physical version he can manipulate, the kind of magic that he is so familiar with, but rather— _magic_. True magic, the kind that works mysteriously and without a master, the kind that fosters love.

How long has he been in love with Matsuoka Rin? When was the last time that he looked at him and didn’t see a shining radiance, an ineffable glow? And how long has Rin loved _him_?

Mind in a harried haze and eyes staring without really seeing, Haru’s voice comes unbidden, quiet and smooth; “You love me.”

Rin startles, watches Haru’s eyes regain their focus and their intensity and pin him down. He repeats himself, unabashed and confident, this time without a shake in his voice. “You _love_ me.”

“So what?” Rin says, shrugging his shoulders with a haughty sniff. He turns his head away and watches the kitsune roll in the steam-covered dirt in front of them, it’s glowing white-gold coat unscathed by the mar of dirt. “You love me too.”

“I do,” Haru leans in close, lifts a hand and turns Rin’s chin so that he’s facing him again, kisses him soft and sweet and smiles against his lips. “I love you very much.”

When they pull away Rin’s face is close to the same shade as his hair and he’s rubbing self-consciously at the back of his neck, biting on his lip. “Yeah, I got it.” He mumbles, and Haru hears the slight shake of his voice, the uneven breathing he tries so hard to hide.

He reaches out again and traces his fingertips lightly over the expanse of Rin’s palm, soft enough to tickle, and threads their fingers together good and tight. He rests their hands on his thigh between them and after a moment Rin leans his head over onto Haru’s shoulder, sighing contentedly.

They sit there for a long time just enjoying the warmth and support of one another, and then for a longer time still when they fall asleep together, leaning against a dragon older than history with a portal on its back and a universe of unknowns locked behind its teeth.

Sometimes magic is easy to understand, easy to manipulate; sometimes magic is used to create and sometimes it’s used to destroy.

And sometimes, the great masters of Love and Time place their hands together, intertwine their fingers, and create the strongest kind of magic; the kind that can’t be controlled, the kind that moves in it’s own enigmatic way, just like the ever-shifting universe.

The kind of magic that lasts forever.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my submission for the Free! Shipping Relay with the theme of Magic! I hope you receive it well, I had a lot of fun writing it c:


End file.
